As the world grows increasingly digital, the number of digital identities required to access the digital world are continually increasing. These digital identities may be associated with multiple devices, networks, services and organizations. Unfortunately, mechanisms for managing these identities, including the credentials used to access our devices and services, and the policies controlling where and how we expose our identities are lacking.
The sheer number of digital identities required for accessing the digital world is reaching the point where they are becoming personally and organizationally difficult to manage. For instance, a person might have: (1) personal identities such as a driver's license, social security number or passport; (2) identities related to devices, such as passwords to get into computers, personal digital assistants (PDA), cellular telephones and answering machines; (3) log-ins to access home networks, enterprise networks, wireless hotspots and cellular networks; and (4) accounts to access the web, e-mail, on-line businesses (e.g., eBay and Amazon), instant messaging, short message service (SMS), and voice message services.
Whether it is trying to remember a user name and a password, or keying in a wireless access code, people experience daily problems dealing with the multitudinous identities required for access to their devices, networks and services. As a result, people look for ways to simplify their identities. Often, management of such identities results in reuse of the same password for each account of a user. Others maintain long, easily stolen lists of the user names and passwords. As a result, the multitudinous digital identities required for access to devices, networks and services are creating trouble for individuals to easily keep track of such information, while jeopardizing protection against unauthorized access to their devices, networks and services.